About Me

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Now that fall is here, I have to start thinking about where to put everyone when it's raining. Now, here in the Seattle area, we don't just get a little rain every now and then during the winter. We get lots of rain for many, many, many days. That means that horses outside need some sort of shelter where they can get dry, especially on days it's wet and cold. Almost all my horses go out of their stalls for at least 8 hours a day. Two have runs off of their stalls and quite a few of mine live outdoors all the time. This means that they have shelters that get cleaned regularily, but we still have to deal with mud.

So, what is the problem? The problem is space - I have 7 1/2 acres, of which most is in paddocks with shelters. That is all well and good, but right now we have about the maximum amount of horses here (17). The plan (!) had been to sell several over the last year, but that hasn't happened yet, so now I'm playing social director. I have to figure out who gets along with who, who is ok next to someone else and make sure everyone gets their share of food, water and shelter. Sounds easy, right? Well....some get along with just about anyone, they're pretty easy. I have a few others that have demonstrated, shall we say, less than stellar friendliness, over the past years. They get a paddock all to themselves. Then, there is the mare and foal and the stallion and ...you get the picture. It's a big jigsaw puzzle of opinions and personalities. Kind of fun really.